5 things in eyeshot that I like

Mascara. I really like mascara. It makes me feel feminine and able-to-bat-my-eyelids like some femme fatale and makes me feel lithe and far more glamorous than I may be.

My diary. I didn't use a diary last year; it was a sad time. At school my diary was my sole reason for existence (you know). Now, my diary elicits feelings of joy and worth ("omg your diary is sa cool!") and makes me feel organised and social and old.

My sheep mug. I have a vast collection of mugs (I will be a mug lady when I retire, you wait), but I do like this one, and it is on my desk with cold coffee. There are happy sheep on it, as well as 'sheep' typography and it fits in the coffee machine, thus it is constantly associated with sheep and coffee, both of which are great things.

Lampshade. My lampshade was picked off the side of the road near the ice-cream shop. It is burgundy and pleated, like the netball skirt I never owned. Because it is burgundy, it makes my feel hip. It casts a faint glow over me and my laptop.

Photo frames (and accompanying photographs). I love photos. My desk is so full of frames there is barely any room for me to do constructive work (oh no). I love the happiness captured in a single millisecond, the accompanying memories, the heart and tummy tingles prompted by such reminisce. Photos have power to make me teary. I wish more people made real-life photo albums, and not just digital ones.

Who

Her gaze shifted and then, with the very flick of her eyeball, everything was starkly different. The dog hadn't been there before. And neither the giraffe.
And the man. The man made her brain tingle with faint recognition. With a recognition so faint and fleeting that it may have been a miniature brain freeze, but was not. She knew him: with his surly grimace and ginger growth and big dinner-plate hands.
He was approaching, idly. He was wandering in her general vicinity.
She said: "Hello"
She said: "Do I know you?"
He seemed startled by the sound of her voice. It was thin and reedy and sounded like a child. (A prepubescent child.)
The giraffe, which had been grazing inconspicuously in the background, make the noise that giraffes tend to make, and trotted over for a pat.
But the girl only had eyes for the man.
Her brain was buzzing with greater buzz than before.
He said:
"If you had been born a man, and in 1980: I am you."
She blinked with slow comprehension.